MOTHER’S DAY

My mother gave birth to me not long ago, and she still looks good for it! :-) I was traveling for Mother’s Day but I made sure to call her and check on her. My mother still cries when I leave town. My mother still calls me for no reason and says “I just wanted to hear your voice.” My mother still worries every time I board a plane and wonders if she’ll see me again and prays like she may not, knowing that she will. My mother still thinks I’m a wanderer or nomad and worries about me getting married or owning a home and makes up for the both of us (since I’m not worried about that).

So to my mother who took care of me while being a new resident from a foreign country, my mother who was a full-time student and full-time mother and full-time wife and full-time worker all at the same time when I was born, my mother who rode a bus from New York City to Houston while pregnant ready to start a new life, my mother who still has the first dollar I ever earned at age 9 years of age—to my mother who actually greets me with “What’s up, Doc? or Dr. Udoewa” because she’s proud of me—to that mother my mother, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day. I love you. And may you be given many more to see the legacy that you have left not just through your own blood children but all the many children you have raised and hazed, baptized and chastised, match-made and bade; and you have many. Happy Mother’s Day.